BROWN OF EATON-UNDER-HEYWOOD, Rt Hon Baron PC 1937-2023
Richard R
Obit in the Times of 10 July 2023:
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood obituary
Colourful Supreme Court justice and raconteur whose cases included Arthur Scargill v the police and Robert Maxwell v Private Eye
…Having been named a law lord in 2004, he chose as his territorial designation Eaton-under-Heywood to reflect the Shropshire parish close to his wife’s family seat. However, that was rejected by the Garter King of Arms who argued that it was not in his gazetteer. “Starting to get desperate, I suggested he might care to telephone South Shropshire district council. This, somewhat grudgingly, he then did, happily with success,” recalled Brown, whose voice was recalled as “booming” and “plummy” by Shami Chakrabati in her book Of Women (2017)…
…Simon Denis Brown was born in Sheffield in 1937, the younger of two sons of Denis Brown, a jeweller, and his wife Elizabeth (née Abrahams); during the war his father served in Burma so Brown had little memory of him until he was eight, when he returned.
The family left Sheffield when he was one and spent the war years at a large Victorian house in Nottinghamshire. They often took holidays at Scarborough and he recalled one character-forming occasion on the south beach when he dropped his sandwich in the sand while showing off but was denied a replacement and instead required to eat the grit-laden bread.
At Stowe School he took a shine to history and won the school history prize. He was awarded a place to read history at Worcester College, Oxford, but first came National Service with the Royal Artillery. During one lengthy pub crawl, Brown drove his car off the road and into a ploughed field, where it came to rest on its side, mercifully with no injuries to his fellow officers. They were picked up by another car and returned to barracks where they drank two more bottles of champagne. “Many a driver 30 years later I was to sentence to lengthy prison terms for less,” he recalled soberly…
…After a long summer holiday in New York stacking shelves in the basement of a 5th Avenue department store he went up to Oxford. He soon switched to law, in part because he had neglected a lengthy reading list but also to present his father with a “coherent alternative” to taking over the family jewellery business. Before graduating he hitchhiked around postwar Europe, swam the Bosphorus from Asia to Europe and worked as a tour guide for wealthy American tourists.
Called to the Bar by Middle Temple in 1961, Brown did his pupillage in chambers in Crown Office Row, recalling that Owen Stable, his pupil master, was a “delightfully old-fashioned figure” who still wore spats. His first brief was a driving case marked five guineas. “Here we are, sir. Our first five-guinea brief,” said his clerk, handing over the file. “Now don’t you go asking any seven-guinea questions.”…
…At Oxford he had met Jennifer Buddicom, who later worked for the publisher Victor Gollancz. They were married in 1963 and had a daughter, Abigail, who was leader of the London Schools Symphony Orchestra and appeared as an actress in Grange Hill, and two sons, Daniel, a book designer, and Benedict, a playwright. Fifty years ago he and Jenny built a chalet in the Swiss Alps for skiing, though they also found it enjoyable in the summer…
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, Supreme Court justice, 2009-12, was born on April 9, 1937. He died on July 7, 2023, aged 86
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lord-brown-of-eaton-under-heywood-obituary-9kqgjc6rd
